Monday, October 4, 2010

Safety Net

There is a line in A Course in Miracles that says, "In my defenselessness, my safety lies."
This has always been a tough one to accept. How can you be safe if you do not defend yourself when necessary? Certainly that is not the predominant world view. I admit, I ponder this statement quite a bit. I even evoke it in order to banish fear. Amazingly, the very act of saying this seemingly paradoxical sentence is sometimes enough to evoke a feeling of calm and peace!
What is safety anyway? When we are safe, we tend to take it for granted. When our safety is threatened (and let's face it, mostly it's about physical safety), we know it! It is a very real feeling, and the feeling is - you guessed it - FEAR.
So, then it all comes back to the basic tenet of ACIM (doesn't it always?) - which is that there are really only two emotions, Love and Fear. Whatever is not Love, is Fear. Leaving aside your objections to this reductivism, if I, in a time of unsafeness (real or perceived), choose to invoke LOVE, what happens? Well, Love in its pure form must be defenseless. We cannot truly love when there are any kind of barriers. Therefore, we love and we are safe. In our defenselessness, our safety lies.
How's that for being vigilant, World?

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